The TUC Library Collections at London Metropolitan University launch the second phase of their website today -- the full original manuscript of the novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell.
Voted one of the nation's 100 best-loved books in the BBC's recent Big Read event, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is an influential classic of working class literature. This unique resource, numbering 1,700 fragile pages, has previously only been accessible to researchers who had to make the trip to London. Now, thanks to a grant from the New Opportunities Fund, readers around the world can access the manuscript online and read the book as the author intended, both with and without the publishers' amendments.
Accompanying the online manuscript are photographs, documents and other ephemera from the Tressell family archive.
You can view the manuscript of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at www.unionhistory.info/ragged/ragged.php.
Alex Bromley
Project Manager
The Union Makes Us Strong: TUC History Online
TUC Library Collections
London Metropolitan University
020 7133 4065
a.bromley@londonmet.ac.uk